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Nairobi Public High School

Michael Hargreaves

Who Is My Neighbor?

We're going to talk about Who is My Neighbor?

I understand that song was sung about the Good Samaritan.

I didn't understand it in Swahili, obviously, but they told me that it was about the Good Samaritan.

That fits very well with our sermon today.

On April 18, 2010, at 5.30 AM on the quiet streets of Queens, New York, a young 31-year-old immigrant to the United States came to the aid of a woman that was being attacked by a man with a knife.

Well, the man struggled, this young immigrant struggled with the armed man and he got stabbed in the process and the woman and the attacker fled in opposite directions and the guy that helped the woman lay on the street in a pool of blood.

Surveillance cameras showed a very shocking scene that took place next.

More than 20 people walked right by this man who was laying on the street wounded and helpless and did nothing about it.

They didn't even pick up their phone and call the police.

And when the firefighters arrived, 15 minutes later, after the last man had walked by and photographed the man with his phone that needed help, he took a picture of him, but he did not help.

15 minutes later, the man was already dead.

And then in another city, a 15-year-old girl, which probably some of you are that age, was beaten brutally and robbed by some teenagers.

3 security guards stood by and watched and did nothing to help.

And then in 2003, a man was shot in Washington, D.C.

And a witness of the crime finished pumping gas into a container and drove away without doing anything to report about the crime.

Society has become so hardened, so used to crime.

Why don't people respond when they see someone suffering?

Well, some people say, well, you know, it's just kind of the product of living in the cities.

The more you live in the cities, you're used to seeing things all the time, homeless people and needs, and you just kind of do what everybody else does and walk by without rendering help.

And other people say, well, we're so used to violence, we see it on television, we watch it on movies, we hear it in music, that we can't distinguish between cyber violence, that's the television, and regular violence.

This is our scripture reading, Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 37.

I put it on the screen for the sake of ease but I see most of you have Bibles and So you can follow along in your Bible.

And the scribes and the Pharisees in this story were trying to get Jesus into trouble.

You know from your Bible that they were his worst enemies.

They were always trying to catch him in his words.

And so 1 day they thought of a clever strategy.

A lawyer is a very high ranking, rich, educated person.

So they called a lawyer to their side and they said...

I want you to tell Jesus, to ask Jesus a question.

Notice what question that they asked, the lawyer asked.

So while Jesus is teaching, the lawyer stands up to interrupt him.

And he says, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Isn't that something we all want to know?

That's a question that everybody wants to know.

Well, the lawyer, he knew the answer to his own question.

He was trying to get Jesus into a trap so he could catch him in his words and turn the people away from Jesus.

So Jesus says to the lawyer, verse 26, he said unto him, what is written in the what?

So did Jesus say, I think, I assume, in my opinion, I believe.

If they speak not according to this word there is no light in them.

And so Jesus points him back to the law of God to base his faith upon the Word of God.

A certain ruler asked him, saying, good master, What shall I, what's the word in yellow?

Now the word inherit means to come into possession as your right.

Verse 20, Jesus tells this rich ruler, you know the commandments.

Do not commit adultery, do not kill, what else?

Steal, do not bear false witness, and honor your father and mother.

Now we know that that's the last part of the law, the last 6 commandments.

To the law and to the testimony, I mentioned this before.

Now, this rich young ruler, he was a good Seventh-day Adventist and he thought himself a good commandment keeper.

He came and he sat in church once a week.

He said, I'm a pretty good commandment keeper.

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Who Is My Neighbor?

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